Beyond the Central Dogma: Model-Based Learning of How Genes Determine Phenotypes

Abstract

Introductory biology students' conceptual models of how genes determine phenotypes elicit and reveal specific systems-thinking abilities.

Practical Strategies for Collaboration across Discipline-Based Education Research and the Learning Sciences

“…The learning sciences paper that examines concept mapping (Schwendimann and Linn, 2016) includes some discussion of the teaching of evolution, but the majority of the introduction focuses instead on theory and prior work. We see differences in the use of theoretical framing in the DBER papers, as Reinagel and Speth (2016) provide some theoretical framing for their article, whereas Dowd et al . (2015) provide very little.…”

“…The DBER paper (Reinagel and Speth, 2016) examines models related to the central dogma produced by students during class exams. The learning sciences paper (Mulder et al ., 2016) examines the utility of partially completed models for supporting student learning in a unit exploring the glucose–insulin regulatory system.…”

“…For example, in the papers examining model-based learning, the DBER paper (Reinagel and Speth, 2016) spends significant time in the introduction discussing pedagogical challenges associated with molecular genetics and in the methods section, very specific details are included about the course context and method of instruction as an active learner-centered pedagogy. This is in contrast to the learning sciences article (Mulder et al ., 2016), which includes few details about instruction or pedagogical challenges in life sciences education, other than what is necessary to set the context for the study.…”

Changes in students’ mental models from computational modeling of gene regulatory networks

“…The overall changes in students' conceptual models, from small and general to larger, more context-specific, and higher quality, suggest multiple changes in their understanding of the functionality of the system (Reinagel and Bray Speth 2016;Verhoeff et al 2008). As Reinagel and Bray-Speth (2016) showed with conceptual models of gene-to-phenotype models, students improved in their ability to apply a generalized model to a specific context.…”

“…Approximately half of the students still retained incorrect and vague relationships within their mental models. For the other half of students, the lac operon computational lesson reinforced some relationships and challenged students to replace or remove other relationships and forced them to restructure their model (Pearsall et al 1997;Reinagel and Bray Speth 2016). Consequently, a computational model reinforced some mental model relationships by showing the result of those interactions.…”